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PRIMARY EDUCATION 
And the Race Problem 

|i Address to the People of Virginia 
Ev A. F. THOMAS, Member oi the State Senate 




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PLEASE READ AND HAND TO 
YOUR NEIGHBOR 



MOOSE BROS. COMPANY, PRINTERS AND BINDERS, LYNCHBURG, V 



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Shall the Country Children of 
Virginia Be Educated? 



The inauguration of the public free school system in Virginia 
dates from the adoption of the Underwood Constitution by vote of 
the people on July 6th, 1869. Article 8, Section 3 provides : 

"The general assembly shall provide by law at its first session under this 
Constitution, a uniform system of public free schools and for its gratlual, 
equal and full introduction into all the Counties of the State by the year 
1876, or as much earlier as practicable." 

Coming as it did upon the heels of a great war in which was 
involved the question of liberating four millions of people for whom 
it was claimed, by the victorious side, equal civil and political rights, 
there is left no room to doubt that it was the purpose of the framers 
of the Constitution that every child in the State should have equal 
opportunity to get an education. Not willing to leave the matter of 
developing this system to the discretion of the legislature, the framers 
made it mandatory that the law inaugurating the system should be 
passed at the first session held under the Constitution. Nor willing 
to rest here, they evidently mistrusting the legislature (with how much 
reason its subsequent acts will show), limited the time for complete 
inauguration and establishment in all the Counties of the State to 
the year 1876. Article 8, Section 8 provides : 

" The general assembly shall apply the annual interest on the literary 
fund, the capitation tax provided for by this Constitution for jmblic free 
school purposes and an annual tax upon the property of the State of not less 
than one mill nor more than five mills on the dollar, for the equal benefit of 
all the people of ihe State, the number of children between the ages of five 
and twenty-one years in each public free school districi being the basis of 
such division. Provisi n shall be made to supply children attending the 
public free schools with the necessary text-books in cases where the parent 
or guardian, by reason of poverty, is unable to furnish them. Each County 
and public free school district may raise additional sums by a tax on prop- 
erty for the support of public free schools. All unexpended sums of any one 
year in any public free school district shall go into the general school fund 
for re-division the next year. Provided, that any tax authorized by this 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 468 802 5 



section to be raised by Counties or school districts shall not exceed five milla 
on the dollar in any one year, and shall not be subject to re-division, as 
hereinbefore provided in this section. " 

This section clearly demonstrates that the framers of the Consti- 
tution committed the State to the free school principle. Going 
beyond the mere declaration of the principle, in this section, they 
laid down the lines along which the progression was to go. They 
left the legislature no opportunity to neglect, by reason of failure to 
provide ways and means, the free school system that they had insti- 
tuted and which was to be extended all over the State by the year 
1876. They commanded that this general fund should be divided 
according to school population and that it should be expended for 
the equal benefit of all the people of the State. The only discretion 
left the general assembly was that it might decide upon the rate of 
the general tax to be levied for public free schools, and even this 
was limited by the provision that made it the duty of the legislature 
to levy at least one mill and denying it the power to levy more than 
five mills. 

As a supplementary measure, made in order to give scope to local 
interest and to facilitate development. Counties and free school dis- 
tricts were permitted to levy an additional tax for public free school 
purposes upon property not in excess of five mills on the dollar. It 
will be observed that the language employed to grant to Counties 
aiid free school districts the power of local taxation is permissive. 
The only limit placed upon this power was that its exercise should 
not involve a greater tax on property than five mills on the dollar. 
Being a right granted by the Constitution, it was entirely without the 
province of the legislature to interfere in any way with the local 
authorities in its exercise, further than to provide by law for the 
method to be followed. Any restriction upon local authorities 
greater than that contained in the Constitution itself was clearly an 
assumption of power on the part of the legislature and an invasion 
of the constitutional rights of the local authorities. If it were in 
the power of the legislature to forbid Counties and free school dis- 
tricts to tax the property within their confines at a greater rate than 
two mills on the dollar when the Constitution had provided that they 
might tax five mills, by parity of reasoning, the legislature could with 
equal reason have denied the Counties and free school districts the 






t: a. and a°tax upon .he ent.re ^''>^'^y -^-^^ ^'^y-ZZl', 
the State and such funds as belong to the hterary fund Proof of 
h s assenio" is found in the fact that the State's part of the arrange- 
L nt s made mandatory. The legislature .»./ inaugurate the sys- 
Trn not later than .876 and it „,../ support it by apply-g such 
fLds as the Constitution provided and in the n,anner p .ded 
mattered not if the legislature did not approve of the plan, 
its duty it m„s/ carry out the constitutional commands. 

Theca^eis entirely different v.-ith the Count.es and pubhc free 

school dstriCs Nowhere m the Constitution can it be found where 

ere L tn onrmand that they .*.// do anything. It leaves the 

there IS any ^j.^etion, the only arbitrary feature bemg 

r -rbUrrsuch ... ... --..Shal, n. e.ceed a.teo 

five mtlls ,n one year. To gran, one permission '"^o carries .Uh 
,t as a necessary corollary the right to refrain from doing therelore 
he Con ti ntion, in leaving the matter of local taxation for pub he 
free^chool purposes to the discretion of the local authorities, eft 
hem free to do or not to do as they thought proper. Any ac of 
theTegistature .0 compel the local authorities to levy a tax or to for- 
bid th'eni doing so was clearly in violation of the Constitution and 
an invasion of the rights of local government. 

The public free school system .as founded upon the assimp.ion 
that the education of the masses was good public policy and that all 
the people had a common interest ,n it, therefore it was the duty of 
the State to educate all. 

The first session of the general assembly under the Constitution 
passed an act which was approved July ii, 1870 (see acts 1869-70, 
pale 407), designed to carry out the mandates of the Constitution. 
Section 14, 2nd sub-division of this act provides : 

"The duties of each County Superintendent of schools shall be as follows 
V. Stake t^^^^^^^ ^^^^" '''' Superintendent of 

^ublif Ins'^uct^^^^^^^ submit to the voters of each County the question 



■whether the County shall raise additional sums by taxation therein for the 
support of the public free schools, not exceeding the amount of the appor- 
tionment from the State together with the allowance to the County Superin- 
tendent of the amount designated by the Board of Education, not exceeding 
the amount specified in the preceding sections: provided, that if upon any 
such proposition the votes for and against it shall be equal, the County 
Superintendent shall give the casting vote."' 

This provision was repealed March 26, 1872 (see aces 187 1-2, 
page 444). Section 24, 8th sub-division of the same act provided: 

" The duties of the boards of school trustees shall be: To prepare and 
submit to the voters of the district questions touching a tax on the property 
in the district, in order to provide school houses, school books for indigent 
children and other school appliances and current expenses, such as are pre- 
scribed by law. When practicable, these questions shall be submitted in 
connection with elections held for other purposes under the general election 
laws of the State ; but the polls may be opened for the same purpose at such 
other times and under such regulations as may be prescribed by the board 
of education. If in any case occurring under this act there should, on poll- 
ing the votes, prove to be an equal number of votes on both sides, the Chair- 
man of the Board of District School Trustees shall give the casting vote." 

This provision was amended March 26, 1872, as follows : 
Duties of school trustees : 

"Within thirty days from the passage of this act, and on or before the 
fifteenth day of November in each year, to prepare and return to the presi- 
dent of the County School Board, to be by him laid before said board at its 
earliest meeting an estimate of the amount of money which will be needed 
in the district during the next scholastic year, for providing school-houses, 
school books for indigent children and other school appliances and neces- 
sary, proper and lawful expenses." 

The act of July 11, 1870 (acts 1869-70, page 415, section 57, 
latter part of the 3rd sub-division), further provided : 

"Provided, that no tax, to be raised by Counties or school districts for 
the support of the public free schools, shall in any case exceed five mills oa 
the dollar in one year." 

Idem, Section 66 : 

" Public free schools shall, in like manner, be established in all the cities 
and towns of this State which are provided with a municipal government 
excluding the jurisdiction and cognizance of the authorities of the Counties 
within which such cities and towns are respectively situated. And the pro- 
vision of this act shall be applicable to such cities and towns in like manner 
as to the Counties, in respect to the othcers and authorities to be charged 



with the execution of the law, their mode of apportionment, their function 
and responsibihties, the raising, distribution and collection, custody, appli- 
cation and disbursement of funds and in all particulars, except only in so 
far as the charters and ordinances of such cities and towns severally (being 
not contrary to the Constitution) shall otherwise provide." 

Acts 1870-71, page 405 (approved March 31, 1871). 

" Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly that public free schools 
shall be established in all the cities and towns of the Commonwealth, which 
are not embraced in whole or in part within the bounds of a township ; and 
the provisions of an act entitled an act to establish and maintain an uniform 
system of public free schools approved July 11, 1870, save as hereinafter pro- 
vided, shall be applicable to such cities and towns in like manner as to the 
Counties of the Commonwealth. 

" Sec. 8. The municipal authorities of any such town or city as described 
in Section 1, may in their discretion raise from time to time by tax on prop- 
erty as by law provided for defraying of the expenses of the municipal gov- 
ernment such sum or sums as they may deem requisite for the support of 
the public schools therein : provided, that no tax thus levied on property 
for school purposes shall exceed three mills on a dollar in any one year, and 
that no annual capitation tax shall exceed fifty cents for all purposes." 

On March 26, 1872, Section 64 of the act of July 11, 1870, was 
amended so as to withdraw the power given to the Board of Educa- 
tion to direct a special assessment and collection of the school tax in 
any County or school district. 

On March 26, 1872, Section 57, 2nd sub-division of the act of 
July II, 1870, was amended making it the duty of supervisors to 
levy taxes for school purposes, 3rd sub-division reading : 

"Provided, that no tax levied by any County for public free school pur- 
poses therein prior to 1876, shall in any case exceed seven and a half cents 
in the hundred dollars upon the assessed value of the taxable property of 
any County and no tax to be levied by any school district for public fre« 
school purposes therein, prior to the year 1876, shall exceed seven and a 
half cents upon the assessed value of the property therein." 

(This act excepts Alexandria County, which, if three-fourths of 
those voting vote affirmatively, may tax fifty cents in the hundred 
dollars). 

Acts 1 87 1-2, approved March 26, 1S72, page 442, 

Idem; " 4th: It shall be the duty of said board of supervisors after care- 
fully considering such estimates, to levy a tax upon the property of the 
County, not exceeding the maximum prescribed in the third clause of Sec- 
tion 57 of this *ct, sufficient to realize the amount recommended by the 



County school board in their estimate of County school purposes, or so much 
thereof as the board of supervisors may allow and to levy a tax upon the 
property of each township, for which an estimate shall be furnished, not 
exceeding the rate aforesaid, sufficient to realize the amount recommended 
by the County school board for school purposes, or such school districts or 
so much thereof as the board of supervisors may allow." 

"7th. Nothing in this act shall apply to cities and towns, the councils 
of which are authorized and required by law to provide for the support of 
public free schools therein." 

Acts 1871-2, Special Session, page 471, approved April 4, 1872 — 
State levies tax of one mill for public free schools — seemingly the 
first State levy for this purpose. 

Acts 1872-3, approved April i, 'q^^, amending Section 57, act 
March 26, 1872: 

"Sec. 57. Provided that no tax levied by any county for public free 
school purposes therein, prior to the year 1876, shall in any case exceed ten 
cents in the hundred dollars upon the assessed value of the taxable prope.ty 
therein. Provided, however, that it shall be lawful for the board of trus- 
tees of any school district, or the County school board of the County, to 
include in their annual estimates for such school district and for the board 
of supervisors of the County to include in their levy for public free school 
purposes in said district any amount which, together with any county tax 
levied in ?uch district for the purposes of public free schools of the County, 
shall not exceed twenty cents in the hundred dollars upon the taxable value 
of the property in said school district." 

Acts 1877-8, page 215, approved March 12, 1878. 

" Be it enacted by the General Assemblj' of Virginia. That the twentieth 
Section of Chapter 79 of the Code of Virginia, edition 187H, shall be amended 
and re-enacted so as to read as follows: 

" Sec. 20. It shall be the duty of the city or town council, and of every 
incorporated town of over five hundred inhabitants which has begn created 
into a separate school district, to provide in due time, and it shall have no 
power to withhold the sum or sums reported by the city or town school 
boards, and declared to be necessary for the proper maintenance and growth 
of the public schools of the city or town, except the city of Richmond, the 
council of which said city shall have the discretion of the board of county 
supervisors: 

"Provided, That the council shall not be required to appropriate a sum 
greater than double the amount received from school funds of the State 
during the same scholastic year; but the council may, in its discretion, 
appropriate a larger sum, but it shall not have power to impose a tax on 
property for school purposes exceeding three mills on a dollar in any one 



The foregoing acts are embodied in the Code of 1887, Section 
833, 3rd sub-division. 

"The board of supervisors shall have power and it shall be their duty, at 
the meeting on the fourth Monday in July in each year, or as soon there- 
after as practicable, to levy tax upon the property in the county sufficient to 
raise the amount recommended bj^ the County school board in their esti- 
mates for County school purposes, or so much thereof as they may allow, 
and to levy tax upon the property in each school district, sufficient to raise 
the amount recommended by the county school board for district school 
purposes, or so much thereof as they may allow; but the tax so levied shall 
not exceed the maximum prescribed in the third sub-division of Section 
1506." 

Acts 1895-96, page 274. 

Amending 833 of the Code, omitting the part making it the duty 
of the board of supervisors to levy a tax on the fourth Monday in 
July, or as soon thereafter as practicable. 

Code, Sec. 1506, 3rd sub-division. 

" Providing that no county shall levy for free school purposes a tax in 
excess of ten cents on the hundred dollars, and that no district shall levy 
for the same purposes in excess of ten cents on the hundred dollars." 

Code 1540. " The city councils shall appropriate and have no power to 
withhold the sums reported by the city or town school boards; provided 
not greater than double the amount received in the same year from the 
State funds, but the council may appropriate a larger sum, but shall not 
impose a tax greater that three mills on a dollar; but the city of Richmond 
shall have the discretion of the boards of supervisors in similar cases." 

The foregoing is the evidence upon which I base the following 
deductions: 

ist. That the Constitution adopted July 6, 1869, and the act of 
July II, 1870, were the only legal enactments in Virginia that sub- 
scribed fully to the free school principle. 

2nd. That all legislation since that time has been unfriendly to 
the public free school system required by the Constitution, and the 
legislature has done what it could to throttle and destroy it. 

3rd. That the legislature has by unjust and unwise laws dis- 
criminated against the public free schools in the Counties and in 
favor of the towns. 

4th. That the legislature has failed utterly to discharge the 
moral obligation that it was under to foster and support the free 
school system. 

5th. That it wrongfully and in defiance of the Constitution and 
decisions of the Supreme Court denied local authorities the right to 
give the support that the fegislature should have given. 



The Public Free School Principle. 



There are two forces upon which man must rely for all that goes 
to make up civilization. The one is physical ; the other is mental — 
the one matter, the other mind. The mind conceives, the hand 
executes. They are not independent, but correlative. The exercise 
of physical force without guidance is chaotic disturbance; it may 
destroy but never produces. Mental conception, unless applied to 
material objects, is only a day-dream that gives forth no tangible 
results. When mentality begins to guide the hand in order to 
increase skill and thus facilitate production, the line of differenti- 
ation between the man and the brute is established. The greater 
the mind force, the greater the production — because man as he rises 
above the state at which he is dependent upon the spontaneous 
productions for means of subsistence, learns to harness the forces of 
nature and compel them to assist him. .This is the result of the 
effort of the mind to increase the effectiveness of labor and relieve 
the body of the necessity of unremitting manual toil. This effort is 
evidenced in all things when civilization is on an ascending scale. 
The constant effort of the individual is to improve methods ; to 
accomplish greater results with less physical force. The inventor is 
the machinist of society bending every energy to tighten the taps, to 
take up the slack, to lessen the loss of force. Anything that tends 
to develop the mind force is increasing the momentum that drives us 
on to the accomplishment of greater results. Education "is the 
greatest factor in this development. When I say education I do not 
mean a process of cramming like that employed by the good house- 
wife to fatten a goose, but the unfolding, as it were, of the natural 
powers of mind, a training of the intellect to perceive and to remem- 
ber facts, to analyze and to classify them, to get knowledge and 
through it to get wisdom. In other words, in order to be considered 
education the process must be one that teaches the mind to perceive, 
to plan and the hand to execute and the heart to regulate 
the relations of men upon lines of equality and justice. Such edu- 



cation increases the power to know the true from the false. It 
increases the elTectiveness of labor and raises the standard of morals. 
For these reasons, it is good public policy to educate. We are 
bound up in a social whole. We are all inter-dependent. A loss 
to one must necessarily re-act upon all the rest. There is no such 
thing as climbing by ourselves. We must carry the rest with us. 
This principle of fraternity underlies democratic government. Once 
destroy the common interest and rule by majority becomes impos- 
sible. Democracy recognizes this truth in asserting the principle of 
local government. It leaves to localities the power of governing 
things local, because, when the confines of the governing power 
exceeds the limit of the common interest, oppression results. 
Whether we view it from the point of intellectual development that 
applies the lever, bridges the stream, tunnels the mountains, harnesses 
the falling water and bridles the lightning, or from the point of 
political effect that insures wise counsels and worthy citizens, or from 
the still higher plane of moral perception, the evidence is equally 
conclusive that education is not only a high duty, but a necessity. 
Education is imperative if we would ascend, if we would place our 
State upon the pedestal of distinction that she once occupied, it 
behooves us to commit ourselves fully to the principle that all her 
citizens must be developed. Why should education be general ? 
Because the end to be obtained is the utmost development of mind 
force. If Virginia today has one need more imperative than all 
others, it is for men of brains and character in her workshops, in her 
factories, on her farms and in her government. When God dispensed 
with generous hand mental power, he did not place it all in any one 
family or class. He scattered it all through the social lump in order 
to leaven it. From the lowly walks of life, from the middle classes, 
from the bon ton, there come examples of mental and moral great- 
ness. America's greatness is due in no small measure to the unex- 
ampled opportunity that has been afforded brains to manifest them- 
selves. If, then, mind is in the mass, we must work the mass in 
order to develop it, just as the miner digs up tons of worthless 
material in order to bring out the valuable ores that lie beneath. In 
a country such as ours, where political policies must be passed upon' 
by the populace, it is absolutely essential to high government that 
the people should be high themselves ; that they should in the high- 



est degree have the faculty of discrimination and judgment. There 
are great problems in front of us. We are now going through an 
evolution to which recorded histoiy offers no parallel. The lamp of 
accumulated experience throws but little light on many of our most 
serious problems. We are being forced onward at an ever increasing 
rate of speed toward conditions which our forefathers would have 
thought impossible. We must meet these conditions. We must 
prove ourselves equal to the duty of our age. We must hand down 
to them who come after us a civilization projected along lines of 
right and reason, or one marred by ignorance and incompetency. 
If we develop the people the first will result; if not, the latter 
becomes inevitable. For these reasons education becomes impera- 
tive. It is a duty that none who loves the State, none whose heart 
is fired with zeal for the common welfare, will neglect. The danger 
is not that we will do too much, but that we will do too little. 

The unit so far as Virginia goes is the whole State. Her duty 
extends all over her territory. If ignorance makes life and property 
less safe, it is the concern of all. If increased intelligence increases 
the productive power of the people, vouchsafes greater security and 
happiness, it likewise becomes a subject of general importance and 
interest. The common interest existing, democratic government 
can well undertake to carry out the task of educating the masses. 
The government, the servant of the people, offers the most effective 
agency for discharging this obligation. This being true, it becomes 
the duty of each to sustain the movement in the measure that he 
possesses property. Tax the rich and the poor with even hand, and 
spread the benefit according to school population. The public free 
school principle requires that the property of the State shall educate the 
children of the State; that all localities shall be taxed at an even rate 
and the money expended according to the number of school children. 
What matters it if one county is rich and another poor. If educa- 
tion is the end to be attained, is it not quite as material to the State 
that the mind force of the poor district shall be developed as well as 
that of the rich district } The mind wherever found, in the valley or 
on the hilltop, in the mountains or on the sea-shore, must be brought 
under the benign influence of training and development. There are 
some who charge that a general tax for schools is unjust to the richer 
communities. If this is true, then the whole principle is wrong and 



ought to be discarded, because if it is wrong to tax the rich district 
to help educate the poor district, by parity of reasoning, it is unjust 
to tax the rich to educate the poor. Identically the same principle 
is relied upon in both cases. Believing unreservedly in the free 
school principle, I believe that it should be a county tax rather than 
a district tax, and a State tax rather than a county tax. Why .' 
Because it is senseless to say that mind force can be as well developed 
when the rich district confines its taxes to its own confines, leaving 
the poor district without the means to carry on its schools as when 
the levy is uniformly laid over both the rich and the poor districts 
and the expenditure is made according to the number of children. 
Is it nothing to the State that the children who chanced to be born 
in the poor districts are deprived of the opportunity to develop the 
mind that God has given? There can be no wise government that 
develops one part of its people and leaves the rest under the pall of 
ignorance. Such government is unjust and unworthy of the patriotic 
esteem of its people. Ignorance is the arch enemy and it behooves 
us to chase it out of our State so that intelligence, like a beacon 
light, may throw its effulgent rays from every hilltop in Old Virginia 
to guide the feet of her sons and daughters safelji in the paths that 
lead to a higher plane than they have yet occupied. 

These are the principles upon which the public free school system 
was founded. The Underwood Constitution, abused and condemned 
as it has been, has this to redeem it. It, and the law enacted July 
II, 1870, are all that our law books show as being in consonance 
with it. Every act since that time has been against the free school. 
If the legislature had believed in the public free school system, would 
it have withheld from the State system that support which it was 
under every obligation to give .f* With the exception of a maximum 
appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars per annum, the legis- 
lature has never done anything toward the support of the system 
except that which the Constitution made mandatory. To say that 
the legislatures since 1870 were friendly to the free school, when they 
have stood supinely by and witnessed its struggles almost to the 
point of extinction, without giving support, is hardly credible. The 
Constitution and the act of July 11, 1870 putting it into effect were 
hardly from the printer before the legislature began its restrictive 
work. Like vandals, it proceeded to tear down and demolish the 
structure. 



1. The act of March 31, 1871, denied the cities the right to levy 
a greater tax than three mills. 

2. The act of March 26, 1872, denied the people the right to 
vote on the question of levying taxes for schools. It limited the 
right of the counties and districts to levy a tax to one and one-half 
mills until 1876. 

3. The act of April i, 1873, raised the limit for counties and 
districts to two mills prior to 1876. 

4. When the Code of 1873 was adopted it perpetuated this wrong. 

5. Act 1895-96 amends 833 of the Code so as to eliminate the 
clause making it the duty of the supervisors to levy taxes for school 
purposes. 

6. In the year of grace 1903, the revision committee composed, 
as I have been informed, of able lawyers and distinguished citizens, 
made recommendation restoring the right of local authorities to levy 
a tax for schools not to exceed the constitutional limit of five mills, 
but in doing so, transcended, I think, their constitutional power in 
providing that local authorities should levy a tax not less than three- 
fourths of a mill for counties and three-fourths of a mill for districts 
and provided a rather cumbersome method by which the people 
should decide by vote whether an excess of one mill should be levied 
after the board of supervisors had levied a rate of four mills. Along 
with this legislation, there was passed an act (Acts 1903, p. 798, 
ai)proved December 28, 1903) re-enacting sections 1490 and 1491 of 
the Code, the first providing that no State or county funds should be 
paid the districts until they had made proper provision for school 
houses, apparatus, etc. The latter containing the astounding,proposi- 
tion that no State money shall be paid for a public free school in 
any school district until there is filed with the division superintendent 
a written statement signed by the chairman and clerk of the board of 
district trustees, certifying that the school has been kept in operation 
for five months during the current year, or that arrangements have 
been made that will secure the keeping of it in operation for that 
length of time. Provided that in case of the unavoidable discontin- 
uance of a school before the expiration of the time required, the 
State Board of Education shall be allowed to relax the requirements 
of this Section and to decide the case on its merits. Such proposi- 
tion is simply monstrous; if put into effect will close not less than 



13 

90 per cent, of the county schools of the State. It is a vital thrust 
at the free school system and places in the hands of the State Board 
of Education a power as absolute as that of a Czar. The total school 
fund of the State is something over two million dollars. The local 
fund is approximately one million dollars. The school term in the 
State is about six months; this includes the cities which run from 
nine to ten months. The average in the county is hardly five months. 
Now under this law the local authorities must run the schools, or 
provide for running them as long as is now done before they can get 
one cent of the State fund. Where they will get the funds to do 
this, I have no idea. The practical effect of this law will be to close 
nearly all the schools of the State, or to make of the district boards 
prevaricators beside whom Munchausen and even Ananias would 
appear as clumsy novices. The Governor's suggestion that the chil- 
dren of the Commonwealth should have a session of nine months is 
good. I heartily endorse it, but his suggestion that the maximum 
tax rate allowed by the Constitution be enacted does not furnish a 
practical method of reaching the desired end. If he refers to the 
State tax rate, I will say that this rate cannot be raised until after 
1907, hence nothing can come from this source to lengthen the ses- 
sion. If he refers to the local tax, I will say that such procedure 
would result in raising the most money where the least need exists. 
The cities and rich districts already have sufficient sums to operate 
the free schools, whereas in the poor districts the value of property 
is not sufficiently large to yield at a reasonable rate the amount 
necessary to run the schools. 

If the deep importance of the subject did not make it imperative, 
I would like to leave unsaid the characterization of the whole pro- 
cedure, but when I think of the three hundred and fifty thousand 
white children of this State who are being fitted for a state of per- 
petual serfdom; when I remember that those who would come to us 
and help develop the resources of our State are kept from us on this 
account ; when I consider that Old Virginia is slowly sinking in the 
scale and is gradually losing that prestige and honor she once enjoyed 
among her sister States, I feel that I would be a renegade, faithless 
to the high trust that \'irginia citizenship imposes upon me, if I did 
not denounce the conduct of the legislatures of the past thirty years 
as the greatest wrong in her political history — the days of recon- 



14 

struction not excepted. We might excuse with more compliment to 
morals than intellect the legislature's failure to give the State system 
adequate support, but what can be said in extenuation of its offence 
in tying the hands of the local authorities and the abuse of power 
that enabled them to pass statutes limiting the local rate to two mills 
when the Constitution had granted the local authorities the power 
to tax five mills in terms so plain that a man, though a fool, might 
run and read and not err therein. The highest tribunal in your 
State has twice spoken in unequivocal terms on this subject. Rob- 
ertson vs. Preston, 97 Va. , 286, June 29, '99, after citing Art. 8, 
Sec. 8 of the Constitution, the Court says: 

"That section of the Constitution confers upon each county the right to 
levy a tax upon property for the public free schools, which the General 
Assembly has not power to take from it." 

Supervisors Washington County vs. Saltville Land Co. , September 
12, 1 90 1, 99 Va. , 645, says: 

"The levy of a school tax is manifestly for a county purpose. It is made 
eo by the Constitution and the right of the county to impose the tax being 
derived from the Consiitution, cannot be taken away by the General 
Assembly." 

The act of throttling the free school system by putting fetters 
upon the local authorities may have proceeded from ignorance, and 
therefore involved no moral turpitude, but with these decisions 
staring one in the face, a continuation would involve open enmity to 
public free schools and an utter disregard for the Constitution of the 
State. 

The legislature restricted the counties and districts to two mills 
and at the same time permitted cities and towns to levy three mills. 

Act March 12, 1878 compelled the councils of towns within the 
limit of double the amount of the State funds to give the school boards 
what they demanded, but left the council free to appropriate as much as 
they pleased of the cities' funds, provided they 'did not levy a greater 
tax than three mills on property. Doubtless, this difference arose, not 
out of any desire on the part of the legislature to foster schools, but 
from a demand coming from the cities themselves that they should 
be permitted to do that which was for their good. It should be 
remembered, too, that the limitations upon the council's right to tax, 
did not fall so heavily upon cities because they have large incomes 



other than those derived by tax on property, out of which the coun- 
cils could make the necessary appropriations. For this reason the 
city schools have been developed and the entire force of the legisla- 
ture's restrictive, not to say destructive, policy has fallen upon the 
county schools. The results are shown (from figures obtained from 
the State Superintendent's report of 1898-99 in connection with 
figures furnished the Richmond Times by the Department of Educa- 
tion on Dec. 18th, 1901) as follows: 

Total school population of the State 665,865 

in ci'ies 81,889 

in counties 583,976 

Local revenue from cities $366,111.69 

:: :: :: Tf''?' ^loiiV- 560,495.00 

" " " districts, 297,914 i ' 

Amount local revenue per capita of school population in cities 4.47 

" " " " " " " " " counties .96 

Which shows that each child in the cities has nearly five times 
the amount of local funds expended for its education that falls to the 
share of the child in the country. Is it any wonder that men and 
women are leaving the country, where they might be producers of 
wealth, in order that their children may be saved from ignorance ? 
Many have told me that they preferred to live on the farm, but they 
felt that it was a duty to bring their children where they might receive 
the benefit of decent schools. Can Virginia afford to depopulate her 
country districts of all who have aspiration and ambition, leaving 
only the more thriftless to sink deeper each year into the slough of 
Despond ? The Superintendent of Public Instruction in his report 
of 1 900-1 901, utters a wail over the rural schools and says: 

"It is a lamentable fact that in some counties of the State the public 
schools are not meeting the reasonable expectations and demands of our 
people for educational opportunities for their children. Some of the school 
houses are unfit for human habitation, the school term is so short that the 
children forget almost as much during the long vacation as they learn during 
the short school term, and the teachers are in many instances inadequately 
prepared and still more inadequately paid. " 

He gives a faithful description of the symptoms which would 
have been still more correctly drawn if he had added that in many 
localities the average of education is lower today than it was fifteen 
vears ago, and that thousands after thirtv vears' existence of the 



i6 

so-called public free school, could neither read nor write their own 
names, if their lives depended upon it. He attributes it all to an 
"insane desire" to multiply schools, and recommends consolida- 
tion, against which I have nothing to say. I believe in consolida- 
tion and transportation of pupils; it should be done, but the Super- 
intendent did not go deep enough to reach the seat of the disease. 
If his diagnosis were correct, that "insane desire"" would affect all 
parts of the country alike. Observation teaches me that it only 
aff"ects the poorer districts. In the richer districts, where there is 
property enough for the limited tax to yield a sufificient sum to oper- 
ate the schools, they have longer terms, better houses and less of 
the "insane desire," while in the poorer districts where the amount 
of the property is too small for the low tax rate to yield a sufficient 
sum to run the schools, there are houses "unfit for human habita- 
tion," little education and much "insane desire."' That "insane 
desire " is the most healthy feature of the whole miser.able business. 
It indicates that the people realize that they are being dragged down 
and they are blindly striking out to save their children from an 
impending fate. Give them light, show them the cause of their 
trouble, and unless I underrate them, they will see to it that the 
wrong is righted, even if they have to empty every seat in the Gen- 
eral Assembly to do so. 

Let us glance for a moment at the results of the oppressive policy 
pursued by the General Assembly. In the eighteen cities and towns 
of the State the school'population is 81,889, 

Composed of whites 45,161 

" negroes 36.728 

from which it will be seen that forty-five per cent, of the school pop- 
ulation in cities are negroes. In the counties the negroes are less 
than forty per cent. From this we see that the three hundred and 
fifty thousand white children of the counties of the State have about 
one-fifth as much per capita of local funds as the thirty-six thousand 
negroes of the cities. To be exact, the town negroes have $4.47 
each, while the country white children have only .96 each. Admit- 
ting, hypothetically, that the State should educate the negro, that 
she should give him all that she gives the whites, how in the name of 
Justice can a system be justified that gives the negro five times as 
much as it gives the great mass of the whites of the State.'' I can 



17 



re^member when the cry was what shall be done to educate and 
develop the negro? 1 appeal now to the people of Virginia to do 
something to raise the three hundred and fifty thousand white chil- 
dren of the counties of this State to the level, in point of education, 
of these thirty-six thousand negroes of the cities. Can we as white 
men afford to continue a policy that is educating a large body of 
negroes far beyond the masses of our people ? If you believe in 
negro elevation, would you crush the hopes of a superior and proud 
people in order that the inferior might rise ? Are you willing to sink 
your own kith and kin into the depths of degradation, in order to 
carry out a theory that has been thrust upon us, and one which, if 
carried to its logical conclusion, must result in the damnation of 
Anglo-Saxon civilization in the South ? 

I think the time has passed for circumlocution and dissembling. 
We must meet the issue openly and frankly. Whatever we may 
undertake to do, whether in social, commercial or political sphere, 
this old man of the sea, the negro problem, comes up to vex us. 
We have trifled with it too long. It is coming on by a steady evo- 
lution to a point of settlement. The issue must finally be met; the 
lines must be sharply drawn. There are two sides to this question; 
to affirm the one is to deny the other. I will state, first, the doc- 
trine of nearly all negroes and most whites w^ho have never been in 
contact with the negro. This theory pre-supposes a common origin 
and admits the existence of the fraternal interest that brothers should 
feel in each other. It makes mankind the social unit. It claims 
that the common interest exists between all races and conditions; 
that there is no difference between men except the differences exist- 
ing between individuals on account of difference in physical, moral 
and mental attainments. The idea of racial difference is repugnant 
to this theory. Its advocates contend that if we came from a com- 
mon source, then ii is a crime to attempt to prevent the return to 
that fraternal condition that first existed. They claim that any dis- 
crimination against any race is an injustice that must necessarily be 
followed by retribution in some form. Under this theory, different 
races may meet upon a common plane, they may be equal indus- 
trially, politically and socially. To admit equality in atiy ojte of 
these necessarily concedes it in the rest. If there is no difference 
between the negro and the white, industrially, then all avenues of 



eftbrt must be kept open to both alike, so that each will have an 
unabridged opportunity to exert his powers in the particular voca- 
tion for which nature and training have fitted him. If once we con- 
cede that there should be industrial equality between the negro and 
the white man, the test between individuals comes down to indi- 
vidual fitness. This means that if two apply for a clerkship, the one 
white, the other black, the more efficient should be accepted. If 
two doctors offer their services, the more proficient should have the 
work. If the preacher, lawyer, merchant, miller, is to be selected, 
the better qualified shall be chosen. If, then, there is to be indus- 
trial equality and government follows as an agent of these people 
who in their every-day life are equals, surely all should be upon the 
same footing in the selection of the men and the measures that are 
to be employed in carrying out the scheme of public service. Indus- 
trial equality then necessarily m^ans political equality. The same 
reason that places the negro on equality with the white man in indus- 
trial affairs, demands that he shall be accorded the same opportunity 
to display his capacity in government. If equality exists in the one, 
it is absurd to claim that it does not exist in the other. There are a 
great many white men in the South who are either unwise or insin- 
cere enough to hold out the idea that the elevation of the negro and 
enjoyment of political equality will come through moral and intel- 
lectual development, and in the same breath will tell the negro that 
there must never be anything looking toward social equality. Such 
position is absolutely absurd. When the negro has reached indus- 
trial equality, political equality comes as an inevitable consequence. 
When he has reached industrial and political equality, social equality 
can no more be kept from him than we can prevent two and two 
making four. This is necessarily true because it follows as an effect. 
The cause may be found in the admission, when we granted indus- 
trial equality, that there was no difterence betw^een men so far as race 
and color go, and that each individual must be judged according to 
his individual capacity and fitness. When the negro proves himself 
the best merchant, we should patronize him. When he shows him- 
self to be the wisest statesman we should elect him. Upon what 
grounds then would you deny him the social relation if he were in 
every sense your equal and there was nothing in his morals, his intel- 
lect and philosophy which in a white man would be objectionable to 



19 

you? If then you admitted him to enter into social relations with 
you and there happened to be an affinity between your daughter and 
the negro, upon what grounds consistent with your theory could you 
deny them the right to marry? If this doctrine is right, then indus- 
trial, political and social equality are right, and any deprivation of 
the negro of the full benefit of the public free school, or of the 
opportunity to enter into any calling, profession or employment for 
which he shows himself competent, is a crime in the sight of God. 
■ Under this theory he is a citizen of this country and entitled to all 
the rights, privileges and immunities that it'aftbrds. I believe this 
doctrine to be totally and absolutely unsound. I deny its sound- 
ness and I refuse to accept its teachings even when given in infini- 
tesimal doses. Do not let us be deceived. This theory is not dead; 
It has changed its method, but in substance it is the same now that 
It was when it engrafted the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States and inaugurated the horrors of reconstruction. It 
is being more scientifically managed. This doctrine, headed by Mr. 
Robert C. Ogden of New York, is being quietly and scientifically 
propagated. Its advocates do not tell you the result; they can well 
aftord to wait for that. They know that when they can get you to 
agree to add two to two they will have four. If they told you the 
eff'ect you would not do it. I do not question their motives. I am 
perfectly willing to concede them the same integrity of purpose that 
I claim for myself, but denying in toto their premises, Tregard them 
as the most important agencies in the dissemination of a doctrine 
that in the end must result in serious race troubles in our country. 

In an interview on December 30, 1903, Mr. Ogden, speaking of 
the eff'ort to have congress see to it that the negro's franchise in the 
South was respected, says: 

" 5th. It will retard and hinder the further progress of the sober public 
opinion of the best South in the effort to secure justice for the negro. The 
issue needs academic, not partizan discussion; national, not sectional con- 
sideration; practical, not abstract action; constructive, not destructive treat- 
ment. The Southern States should be put upon their honor to enforce hon- 
estly their own franchise laws. Time for this has not lapsed. If, after fair, 
deliberate opportunity, the trial results in failure, then consider the remedy 
afforded by the Uth and 15th Amendments to the Constitution with both of 
which I cordially agree." 



20 

There you have it. The cat is out of the bag. Mr. Ogden would 
not try heroic methods. He would by gentler and slower methods 
lead us up to that higher plane upon which he stands and have us 
look upon the so-called problem through an atmosphere so clear 
that one cannot tell the difference between a negro and white man; 
but with a veiled threat he tells his friends that should his missionary 
efforts fail, then they might consider the proposition of doing by 
harsher methods that which he had failed to do by gentler means. 

It is my conviction that there is more danger in the little finger 
of Mr. Ogden's philosophy than in the combined weight of all the 
scalawags and carpet-baggers who ever attempted to force political 
equality upon a prostrate South! It is the insidious evil that slowly 
creeps upon a people that in the end will produce the most harm. 
Against Mr. Ogden I have nothing to say. That his purpose is high, 
that his motive is good, I will readily admit; but that his theory is 
wrong and will result in untold harm, I have not the slightest doubt. 
Look at it as you will, the end of it is bad. One of two things must 
eventuate: either the races will become one by miscegenation or they 
will be developed to that intensity of antagonism where conflict 
between them will become inevitable. 

There is a philosophy, rational, in accord with natural law, which 
I will proceed now to consider: 

We are all the products of nature. Why she made us as we are, 
or even made us at all, may be involved in more or less mystery. 
One thing is clearly established, and that is that there are distinct 
races of men just as there are distinct races of animals. The zoolo- 
gist tells us that there is a genus known as the felis which embraces 
the lion, tiger, leopard, panther and cat. These are all classed as of 
the same family, but each is of a separate and distinct species. In 
point of fact, they are separate creations having certain things in 
common; they live upon the same character of food; they walk 
alike; they bear and nurse their young alike. In other respects they 
are totally different and each has implanted in it a racial instinct 
that insures the preservation of the integrity of the species. The 
animal trainer who puts only lions or tigers or leopards in the same 
cage has no difficulty in preserving the peace; but he who dares to 
mix all these different species in one enclosure will raise pandemo- 
nium. Man belongs to the genus, animal; he is a species. This in 



21 



no wise establishes a fraternal interest between him and the tiger. 
Considering man as the genus, each race becomes a species, but this 
in no sense establishes a fraternal bond between them. If the mere 
fact of belonging to the animal creation makes man a family relation 
of all brutes, then all species of men are bound up in a social unit, 
otherwise, not. Each separate race is a species of the genus homo, 
and there is no more relation between them than exists between the 
lion and the tiger. This being true, they can never act together in 
harmony. The very nature of their being prevents it. They were 
destined to walk separate paths. There does not exist between them 
that common interest, that fraternal relation upon which democratic 
government depends for its reason of existence. When these races 
come in contact, it becomes a question of force and even justice 
becomes relative. We have displayed less wisdom than the animal 
trainer. We have tried to put the white man and the negro in the 
same cage. We have tried to spread the democratic canopy over 
them both, but it is too small. Between these races the wall of race 
instinct, antagonism or prejudice if you please, rises to giddy heights 
through which there is only one possible escape, and that is miscege- 
nation, which would mean the destruction of the white race of the 
South. I ask you to point me, in all the history that runs from the 
present back to Adam, a single instance where any race has ever 
amalgamated with the African and made a people who showed 
capacity for self-government, or had the inherent power of develop- 
ing a civilization. Why continue the farce of attempting uniform 
government when we have not the essentials upon which to found 
it? If all the laws^ in Christendom said that all men should have 
blue eyes and straight hair, or that all should have kink}- hair and 
flat noses, it would not be true. If we fill our law books with con- 
stitutions and statutes in, violation of natural law, they will be about 
as eflfective as Dame Partington's effort to sweep out the ocean. 

Thirty odd years ago our law-making power decreed that the 
negro and the white man were political equals. Not for a single 
day has this been true. Today he has less political power than he 
had then. A century from now, if he stays in this country, he will 
have less than he has today. We have spent millions educating him 
along the present line and today he is far less useful than when we 
started. The stability of all things depends upon service. When 



anything becomes useless it must give way. The negro has degen- 
erated until today he is looked upon with suspicion. Confidence in 
his trustworthiness is shaken. Continue this process and it will be 
only a question of time when a settlement of the trouble will come, 
but it will be of such character as will be discreditable to both races. 
To continue the practice of educating the negro along lines where 
the doors of opportunity are closed to him is positively cruel. It is 
sharpening the nerves in order that pain may be more excruciating. 
If the negro is to stay in the South, he must learn to work ; he must 
be moral and useful; the plain duty of the State is to teach him to 
use his hands; to train him to work. He should be educated indus- 
trially a^w^ the lines that are open to him; the State should not under- 
take to qualify the negro to fill places that he has no chance what- 
ever to get. In my judgment a large percentage of the State money 
spent for negro education should go to industrial schools for him; 
this would make him more useful to the State and have a tendency 
to promote his happiness and contentment. Our present method of 
educating the negro has driven him from the whites, no longer does 
that friendly feeling exist, the future is dark and gloomy. Nature is 
calling in no uncertain tones for the separation of the two races and 
later her call must be obeyed. God help us to find a reasonable way 
that the changes may occur with the least possible harm to both 
races. Our educational policy has been to destroy the usefulness of 
the negro; to make him unfit for the avenues that are open to him; 
to make him unhappy and discontented, with less respect for law 
and hence a more dangerous element in the State. There has never 
been a day that the people of the South believed in the course we 
have been pursuing; they never would have authorized it if left free 
to choose. They had thrust upon them a governmental policj' in 
which they had no faith, and after thirty years' trial it has proven a 
failure. 

This policy has rendered the negro unhappy and the public 
unsafe. It is not enough to show that some negroes have been 
improved, or that the race as a whole has been developed intellectu- 
ally for this only goes to prove that as intellectual progress takes 
place the races are driven farther apart and the negro, instead of 
being a more useful element, becomes a source of endless irritation 
and danger. Thirty years ago none feared to leave his home unpro- 

L. ♦/ 0« 



23 

tected, but today there exists an increasing feeling of insecurity. If 
the people of Virginia believe in the doctrine of equality between the 
races, then let us in good faith proceed to educate all the people 
alike; let us throw all the doors of opportunity open to the man 
regardless of race. To educate and then to shut the door of hope is 
to use the State as an agency in the production of a dangerous and 
criminal class. If, on the other hand, we believe that equality is 
impossible, that race distinction should exist, then why injure the 
white man and ruin the negro ? The money that we have spent on 
the negro is nothing compared to the loss we have sustained in 
morals. Politically we. have been treading the downward path. 
Our public conscience has been violated and our sense of honor 
made dull. What I want is to be free and to see our people free. 
I see but one way to reach this freedom and that is by seeing things 
in their true light; by subscribing to the true philosophy and keeping 
well within the lines of the law that nature has laid down, over which 
none may go and escape punishment. I am not willing to see Vir- 
ginia continue with the millstone of equality and uniformity tied 
about her neck. I would unhand her, leaving her free to develop 
along the lines of the philosophy of her people. I would break her 
shackles and turn her loose and they who differ from us have the 
option of continumg a policy that failed with us. It is usual to 
expect wisdom where men have been in closest touch with the con- 
dition, but in all the world the men who know best how to regulate 
the relations between the races along the lines of equality are those 
who have seen the least of it. In England the white man and the 
black man are the same. In Australia and Africa they are not. In 
the North they are brethren. In the South one is a negro and the 
other is a white man. Let us deal with this subject as we know it 
rather than as those who do not know it think it ought to be. The 
unfortunate attempt that Virginia has made to maintain uniform 
treatment has resulted in more damage to the whites than to the 
blacks. In the efforts of the legislature to do as little as possible fo^" 
negro education in the counties, it has brought the whites down far 
lower in point of education than the negroes of the cities. 

I appeal to all who believe in the education and development of 
the children of this State along the lines of utility to come out firm 
for this principle and be ready to give battle for the cause that under- 



24 

lies the future greatness of our State. It is not so much that I 
would change opinions, but I would break up the attitude that the 
legislature has assumed since 1870, pretending friendship to a uniform 
system of public schools, while their acts prove conclusively one of 
two things: either they never arose to a just comprehension of the 
principles involved, or they designedly tried to violate them. 

It is one thing to tear down. It is quite another to re-build upon 
the foundation laid bare. Clearly the first thing to be done is to 
take the hand of the legislature from the throat of the public free 
school system, leaving the local authorities the constitutional right 
to tax property for public free school purposes to the extent of five 
mills on the dollar. The next step is to give the State free school 
system such State support as may be just and proper. The necessity 
of this is apparent to any one who understands the situation and 
who is a believer in the free school principle. 

The wealth of the State is fast being centralized in the cities. 
At present the eighteen cities of the State own over forty per cent, of 
the wealth of the State. The cities have only about thirteen per 
cent, of the school children of the State; hence the counties of the 
State with less than sixty per cent, of the wealth are compelled to 
educate eighty-seven per cent, of the children. If local taxation is 
relied upon, it is manifest that in poor districts there will not be 
sufficient funds to educate the children. If, however, the tax is 
general, it reaches all property and in time reaches all children thus 
conforming fully to the free school principle that the property of the 
State shall educate the children 0/ the State. This would logically lead 
to the proposition of raising the State rate of taxation for public free 
schools, but against this course there are objections which need be 
considered. The first objection is that such action, before 1907, 
would be unconstitutional. Second, the raising the rate on property 
for school purposes would bring the money so derived within the 
funds, disposition of which must be made under Section 135 of the 
Constitution. This Section provides that the interest on the literary 
fund, the State capitation tax and the annual tax on property for 
schools, not less than one nor more than five mills, shall be devoted 
to the schools of the primary and grammar grades for the equal ben- 
efit of all the people of the State. 

I am strongly inclined to believe that better results would follow 



T46 



25 

if the legislature were to make a special appropriation for primary 
schools, providing that the division among the counties and cities 
should be upon the basis of school population, but leaving to the 
local school authorities the discretion of expending it for such pri- 
mary schools as, in their judgment, might be for the public good. 
The advantage to be derived from such provision would be that the 
white people of Virginia, if they thought best, could use this fund 
for the education of the white children of the counties until they had 
been given the same advantages now given the negro children in the 
cities. 



26 

The Remedy and How to Apply it. 



At the next session of the General Assembly I will offer a Bill to 
appropriate five hundred thousand dollars per annum for the aid and 
maintenance of primary schools. This money shall be distributed 
over the State according to school population, but the local school 
authorities shall be empowered to apply this fund to such class of 
primary schools as in their judgment may be for the public good; 
and it shall be further provided that the funds shall be uniformly 
applied to such class of primary schools as they may select. This 
only involves a new appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars 
per annum sin^ce in the five hundred thousand I propose to include 
the two hundred thousand that is at present appropriated and put 
into the general school fund. In a country governed by the people 
nothing of lasting importance can be effected unless it reflects the 
popular will, therefore it becomes the duty of the citizens to stand 
for measures that they believe will advance the public good. If you 
believe that I am right in my contention, give it your support. If 
you agree with me, see to it that every man who offers for election 
takes position on this question. Make him declare himself and then 
vote for or against him as your deliberate judgment may dictate. 
In my judgment, your decision involves more than is at first appar- 
ent. In the final analysis it means freedom and development, or 
retrogression and peonage for the masses. For which do you stand.'' 
I have refrained from introducing into this question any partizan 
consideration. It rises above party politics into the realm of State 
policy. The political parties in Virginia for muny years have stood 
for little and have accomplished less. Let our fight now be for 
measures, for the principles that mean something. Let the patriotic 
men of Virginia come to the aid of the old mother in her hour of 
need. Let them take hold of the helm and steer the-ship through 
the dangerous waters. We are awakening from a long and restless 
sleep in which hideous nightmares have palsied our hands and 
enfeebled our minds, but the rays of light are growing stronger and 
the day dawn comes apace. Let us, like men of old, rise to the 
occasion and demonstrate again that when Virginia calls for brain 
and brawn she never calls in vain. 



\ 



